Your "Scheduler"

Get control of your schedule#

The third category of habit concerns your scheduler (also known as a process manager). Does it drop tasks? Does it prioritize low priority tasks over high priority ones? Is it bad at task switching or terminating clearly stalled apps? If so, it may be buggy. Get control of your schedule. Create a single source of truth (per category), put everything in it, and make time for things that matter.

📝 Note: If you feel constant background anxiety and need a more prescriptive guide, the classic text on handling this is Getting Things Done. If that goes too far and you want something more relatable to developers, see Marc Andreesen’s Guide to Personal Productivity (balance it with his 2020 update).

Know how to say “No”#

To tell if things matter, defer execution as much as possible: Say “No” more to your impulses and other people’s requests. Just like you would want any API to behave, rejecting tasks is better than accepting and never doing them. Knowing how to say “No,” well, sparks joy.

Biases#

Remember our biases in the Eisenhower Matrix-- we often neglect the not urgent yet important things for the urgent yet not important ones:

Learn to make time#

Almost every endeavor of lasting, long-term value is not urgent yet important. If time is more valuable than money, the skill of making time is more valuable than the skill of making money. Learn to make time.

Strategy matters#

Make time for the big strategic decisions in your life. Time is uneven – Some years will pass like days, but some days will feel like years. You can’t control when your big career breaks will happen, but you can periodically step back to reassess the big picture, including everything from business strategy to industry megatrends to how you are progressing on career ladders. Luck will favor the prepared mind.

Batch-focused work#

When you do work, also matters. Your focus and energy do not stay constant at all times of the day. The science of chronotypes has found widespread acceptance, and it is worth figuring out which you are. This will help you batch-focused work to times when your mental acuity is high and leave administrative chores to afternoon lulls. The best discussion of this I’ve come across is Dan Pink’s When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.

Context switching#

The idea of optimal batching doesn’t just apply to diurnal rhythms; it also applies to the workweek. For example, Sarah Drasner dedicates the start of her week to meetings and blocks out large chunks toward the end of the week for uninterrupted coding. Paul Graham’s term for this is Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule – if you have to do both, try to alternate between modes rather than constantly intermix them. The road to burnout is paved with context switching.